Serializable

[sun par]

All interfaces have public methods by default. So why in the case of Serializable interface one has to provide the exact methods

private void writeObject(java.io.ObjectOutputStream out)
     throws IOException
 private void readObject(java.io.ObjectInputStream in)
     throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException; 

Thanks

[Michael Morris]

Serializable has no methods. It is a tagging interface only. From the API docs:
Serializability of a class is enabled by the class implementing the java.io.Serializable interface. Classes that do not implement this interface will not have any of their state serialized or deserialized.
Michael Morris

[Greg Charles]

As Michael say, Serializable has no methods. You don't have to do anything to implement Serializable (other than say you are doing it). However, if you want to control the serialization and deserialization in a different way from the default, you implement those writeObject() and readObject() methods. In practice you don't have to do that very often.